CBS News senior national and environmental correspondent Ben Tracy and Kevin Book, managing director of ClearView Energy Partners, discuss efforts to plan for the effects of climate change, and what is being done to mitigate them.
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The U.S. government on Friday said it received one bid for the right to drill offshore for oil and gas in Alaska’s Cook Inlet near habitat for bears, salmon, humpback whales and endangered beluga whales.
Hilcorp Alaska LLC submitted the sole bid — $63,983 for an area covering 2,304 hectares or 5,693 acres.
The company is a unit of Hilcorp, which is the largest privately held oil and gas exploration and production company in the United States. It already has leases to drill for oil and gas in onshore areas of Cook Inlet, which stretches from Anchorage to the Gulf of Alaska.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which conducted the sale via livestream, was offering leases for 193 blocks totaling some 958,000 acres (388,000 hectares) but received just one bid for one block.
The U.S. Interior Department in May said it would not move forward with the Cook Inlet lease sale due to a “lack of industry interest.” But over the summer, Congress passed legislation that called for a Cook Inlet lease sale by year’s end and two Gulf of Mexico lease sales next year. The provisions were part of the Inflation Reduction Act, a sprawling package that also included major investments to fight climate change.
Environmentalists criticized the sale, saying oil and gas leases undermine efforts to address climate change. They also expressed concern that an oil spill could harm wildlife, subsistence gathering and commercial and sport fishing.
Hilcorp said it was proud of its work to revitalize natural gas production in Cook Inlet, which it said nearly two-thirds of Alaskans depend on to heat and power their homes and businesses.
“We look forward to continuing to responsibly produce Alaskan oil and natural gas, create Alaskan jobs and contribute to the state’s economy for decades to come,” the company said in a statement.
Dyani Chapman, the director of Alaska Environment, a nonprofit organization, said Alaska should be looking forward to a cleaner, greener future in the coming year.
“Instead, we’re closing out 2022 with a lease for more dirty, dangerous offshore drilling,” Chapman said in a statement. “For the sake of our beluga whales, northern sea otters, salmon and more, we urge companies to recognize that drilling in Cook Inlet should be left in the past.”
Environmental groups earlier this month sued the Biden administration over the sale, saying an environmental review failed to adequately evaluate how it would affect whales. It also argued that a greenhouse gas emissions analysis was based on flawed modeling and that the review failed to consider “a reasonable range of alternatives” for the lease sale.
The Cook Inlet basin is Alaska’s oldest producing oil and gas basin, dating back to the 1950s, according to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management says the new lease will be awarded after a 90-day evaluation process to ensure the public receives fair market value. The Department of Justice will also review the sale for antitrust considerations.
For banks, the potential losses associated with climate change — and the opportunities from transitioning to clean energy — came into sharper focus during 2022.
With prodding from their regulators, U.S. banks took some steps forward on assessing climate risk, but not as quickly as their counterparts in Europe. Near the end of the year, the Federal Reserve Board proposed new guidelines for large banks on how to manage those risks.
Meanwhile, President Biden signed legislation that provides grants and tax credits to the clean-energy sector — presenting new chances for lenders to profit from energy transition.
What follows is a look back at the year in climate finance.
The writers on The Atlantic’s Science, Technology, and Health desks have learned a lot this year. Our coverage of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic has continued, but this year, more so than in 2020 and 2021, we’ve also had the chance to report on topics that have filled us with awe and delight. Though the past 12 months have not been free of concerns about infectious disease, climate change, and even nuclear war, we’ve embraced more fascination and curiosity in our coverage this year, and we wanted to share and reflect on some of the most compelling tidbits we’ve stumbled across. We hope you find these facts as mind-blowing as we did.
Days on the moon are hot enough to boil water, and nights are unfathomably cold, but at least one spot on the lunar surface stays a pleasant 63 degrees Fahrenheit.
About 10 percent of the bills introduced in Congress in the past two years have been titled with reverse-engineered acronyms, including the ZOMBIE Act.
It takes at least seven years to train the muscles and tendons in your elbow that will make you a great arm wrestler, according to the arm wrestler Jack Arias, who was in the 1987 arm-wrestling movie Over the Top with Sylvester Stallone.
American Express started making metal cards in 2004 because of an urban legend about its most exclusive card being titanium.
The first-of-its-kind electric Hummer weighs as much as an ambulance and accelerates like a Formula 1 race car.
Woodpeckers have small brains, which is why they can smash their heads against trees unharmed.
A toaster-size device inside a rover on Mars can convert Martian air, made almost entirely of carbon dioxide, into breathable oxygen.
Pawpaws tend to stay green throughout their life cycle, so in order to tell if they’re ripe, you have to individually caress every fruit on a tree.
The metal that makes up a nickel has long been worth more than the coin itself.
The Presidential Fitness Test was developed because the federal government worried that postwar children were too soft to defeat communism when they grew up.
The iPhone is the only major Apple product that doesn’t support charging with the now-ubiquitous USB-C cable.
Some of YouTube’s earliest hits got popular thanks to “coolhunters,” a group of editors who individually picked videos for the site’s homepage.
In 1918, California conscripted children into a week-long war on squirrels.
Some baby cameras feature artificial intelligence that will recognize when your baby’s face is covered or when the baby has coughed.
Extreme heat and specific pressure conditions on WASP-96b, an exoplanet about 1,150 light-years from Earth, mean that rock can condense in the air like water does on Earth, producing clouds made of sand.
In 2021, a full quarter of single-family homes sold in America went to buyers with no intention of living in them, such as house flippers, landlords, Airbnb hosts, and other investors.
Julius Caesar reportedly announced his conquest of Gaul via pigeon.
The Japanese makers of Hi-Chew candy were persuaded to push into the mainstream American market because of the candy’s enduring popularity among missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who had returned home after time in East Asia.
Secondhand-smoke inhalation causes more than 41,000 deaths annually in the U.S., more than some flu seasons.
China’s zero-COVID policy may be largely responsible for gas prices falling from a March peak to below $4 a gallon in August.
Polar bears in Southeast Greenland are homebodies.
The world’s best chess player, Magnus Carlsen, has, by one calculation, a 98 percent chance of losing and a 2 percent chance of drawing against the world’s best chess-playing computer program; victory is basically impossible.
Earlier this year, Moonbirds NFTs—basically colorful little pixelated owls—generated $489 million in trading volume in their first two weeks of existence.
In 1975, the average grocery store stocked 65 kinds of fruits and veggies. By 1998, that number had reached 345.
Government spending on climate change over the next decade could end up more than double what Democratic senators predicted for the Inflation Reduction Act.
Journals can be big business: One collector sold a diary from a 1912 Machu Picchu visitor and another by an 1868 Missouri River traveler for about $9,000 each.
In Wordle, just one correct letter in the right spot and one in the wrong spot can eliminate 96 percent of possible solutions.
A major obstacle to meeting the United States’ clean-energy goals is that we have to double the rate at which we build the giant cables that transmit power between regions.
Little kids who grew up amid intense COVID restrictions might have different microbiomes than those born several years earlier—and whether that’s good or bad is unclear.
Militaries are developing swarms of starling-size drones that will be able to fly and attack together with the use of artificial intelligence.
The Apollo 11 moon lander will sit on the moon for millions of years because there’s no wind or water to erode it away.
Your smart thermostat mostly exists to help the utility company, not your wallet.
The cocaine-eating bear that died in 1985 and inspired the upcoming film Cocaine Bear is stuffed, mounted, and on display at a mall in Lexington, Kentucky.
THURSDAY, Dec. 29, 2022 (HealthDay News) — Adding climate-impact labeling to fast-food menus can have a big effect on whether or not consumers go “green” when eating out, new research suggests.
The finding is based on an online survey that asked consumers to order virtual meals after randomly looking over menus that either had some form of climate labeling or none at all.
The result: Compared with those who chose from a regular, non-labeled menu, 23.5% more who ordered from a menu that flagged the least green choices ended up making a “sustainable” meal choice. (That’s another way of saying, for example, that they steered clear of red meat — a food whose production has a big climate impact.)
Similarly, about 10% more of respondents made more sustainable choices when reviewing menus that indicated the greenest meals available.
“Sustainability or climate change menu labels are relatively new, and have not yet been implemented in fast-food restaurants,” said lead author Julia Wolfson, an associate professor of human nutrition at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore. “However, other kinds of labels, such as calorie labels, have been in restaurants for some time now.”
Other studies have shown that such labels do affect food ordering decisions.
With that in mind, her team wanted to see if climate labels might be equally effective. And — if so — “whether positively or negatively framed labels were more effective at nudging consumer behavior towards more sustainable choices,” Wolfson said.
More than 5,000 adults 18 and older participated in the online survey in March and April of this year. About two-thirds were white, 12% were Black and 17% were Hispanic.
They were told to imagine that they were at a restaurant ordering dinner, after reviewing a fast-food menu containing 14 choices.
Menu items included beef burgers, beef-substitute burgers, chicken and fish sandwiches, chicken nuggets, and various salads.
Each participant was randomly assigned to view only one of three menus, on which every food option was clearly identified by a photo that could be clicked when placing an order.
One menu featured standard (climate neutral) QR codes below each meal photo. The second featured red labels stating “high climate impact” under meals that included beef. A third menu featured green labels stating “low climate impact” under those meals that did not include beef.
“We found that both the high and low climate impact menu labels were effective at encouraging more sustainable food selections compared to the control,” Wolfson said. “But the most effective label was the one indicating high climate impact on beef items.”
Researchers also found that when people made more sustainable choices, they also perceived them as healthier. That suggests climate-friendly fast-food labeling could be a win not just for the environment but also for waistlines.
Still, none of the encouraging results were derived from ordering choices made in actual restaurants.
“More research is needed to understand the most effective and feasible label designs, and how such labels would affect food choices in real world settings such as fast-food restaurants, other restaurants, grocery stores, and cafeterias,” Wolfson said.
Two outside experts greeted the survey findings with skepticism.
Connie Diekman — a St. Louis-based food and nutrition consultant and former president of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics — said it remains to be seen just how effective such labels might be in actual practice.
“This study was an online survey, so people were not in the restaurant making food choices,” Diekman said. “The question mark on impact is will people do this when in the restaurant?”
In her experience as a dietitian, people dining out are often focused on the occasion and not on the nutritional impact of their food choices.
“I would wonder if the same [would] occur here,” Diekman said, adding that human behavior does not always align with research studies.
Lona Sandon is program director for the Department of Clinical Nutrition at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. She wondered who would decide which foods get labeled “green” or not.
“I predict that there will be a high degree of scientific disagreement on this,” she noted.
Regardless, Sandon doubted that such labels would significantly influence people to make greener food choices outside a restaurant setting, limiting the overall environmental impact of any restaurant labeling effort.
“In theory, this sounds like a nice idea,” she said. “In reality, I think it will be a bit of a mess. Restaurants will have difficulty following regulations, and regulators will have difficulty coming up with a way to define a climate-friendly food item.”
Sandon said a more effective strategy would be to consider the food system as a whole when it comes to sustainability and climate friendliness and not simply focus on an individual food item on a menu.
The findings were published Dec. 27 in JAMA Network Open.
More information
There’s more about food labeling at Food Print.
SOURCE: Julia Wolfson, PhD, MPP, associate professor, human nutrition, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore; Connie Diekman, RD, MEd, food and nutrition consultant, St. Louis, former president, Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics; Lona Sandon, PhD, MEd, RDN, LD, program director, and assistant professor, clinical nutrition, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas; JAMA Network Open, Dec. 27, 2022
Noted climate activist Greta Thunberg and former light-weight kickboxing champion Andrew Tate are in a Twitter war — and the Internet is gobbling it up.
The skirmish started yesterday when Tate tweeted a photo of himself standing next to his gas-guzzling Bugatti. Tagging Thunberg, he boasted about his 33 cars and wrote: “Please provide your email address so I can send a complete list of my car collection and their respective enormous emissions.”
Please provide your email address so I can send a complete list of my car collection and their respective enormous emissions. pic.twitter.com/ehhOBDQyYU
Thunberg responded earlier today with a tweet questioning Tate’s manhood. She wrote, “yes, please do enlighten me,” sharing the fake email address: “smalldickenergy@getalife.com.”
yes, please do enlighten me. email me at smalldickenergy@getalife.com https://t.co/V8geeVvEvg
Tate recently topped Google’s 2022 category for trending “who is …” questions. He has been criticized for making misogynistic statements on his TikTok channel, comparing women to property and saying rape victims must “bear responsibility” for their attacks.
Thunberg is a 19-year-old climate activist from Sweden who delivered a widely-celebrated speech at the United Nations in 2021. But she has also been a target of climate change deniers who have compared her to a Nazi.
At press time, Thunberg’s tweet had 82 million views. Tate’s tweet had 64 million views.
From a small island in Polynesia to the white-sand beaches of Florida, the planet experienced a dizzying number of climate and extreme weather disasters in 2022.
Yet against the backdrop of these catastrophic events, this year also sparked some glimmers of hope:
Scientists in the US successfully produced a nuclear fusion reaction that generated more energy than it used – a huge step in the decades-long quest to replace fossil fuels with an infinite source of clean energy.
And at the United Nations’ COP27 climate summit in Egypt, nearly 200 countries agreed to set up a fund to help poor, vulnerable countries cope with climate disasters they had little hand in causing.
“There was some encouraging climate action in 2022, but we remain far off track to meet our goals of reducing global heat-trapping emissions and limiting future planetary warming,” Kristina Dahl, principal climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told CNN. “There must be a stronger collective commitment and progress toward slashing emissions in 2023 if we are to keep climate extremes from becoming even more devastating.”
Here are the top 10 climate and extreme weather stories of 2022.
When the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano erupted in January, it sent tsunami waves around the world. The blast itself was so loud it was heard in Alaska – roughly 6,000 miles away. The afternoon sky turned pitch black as heavy ash clouded Tonga’s capital and caused “significant damage” along the western coast of the main island of Tongatapu.
The underwater volcanic eruption also injected a huge cloud of ash and sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere, more than 30 kilometers (around 19 miles) above sea level, according to data from NASA satellites.
But months later, scientists found that the eruption actually belched an enormous amount of water vapor into the Earth’s stratosphere – enough to fill more than 58,000 Olympic-size swimming pools. The massive plume of water vapor will likely contribute to more global warming at ground-level for the next several years, NASA scientists reported.
Severe drought reveals incredible discovery at bottom of Mississippi river
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Searing temperatures, lack of rainfall and low snowpack pushed some of the world’s most vital rivers to new lows this year.
Northern Italy saw its worst drought in more than 70 years. The 400-mile River Po hit a record low due to an unusually dry winter and limited snowpack in the Alps, which feeds the river. The drought impacted millions of people who rely on the Po for their livelihood, and roughly 30% of the country’s food, which is produced along the river.
Also fed by winter snowpack in the Alps along with spring rains, Germany’s Rhine River dropped to “exceptionally low” levels in some areas, disrupting shipping in the country’s most important inland water way. Months of little rainfall meant cargo ships began carrying lighter loads and transport costs soared.
Biden signed the bill into law in August and signaled to the world that the US is delivering on its climate promises.
Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin was influential in delaying the bill’s passage. Multiple White House and Biden administration officials for months had tried to convince the senator to support the bill over dinners in Paris and ziplining in West Virginia.
An analysis suggests the measures in the bill will reduce US carbon emissions by roughly 40% by 2030 and would put Biden well on his way to achieving his goal of slashing emissions in half by 2030.
‘We are in trouble here in Daytona’: Coastal homes collapse into the ocean
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CNN
Hurricane Nicole was the first hurricane to hit anywhere in the US during the month of November in nearly 40 years. The rare, late-season storm also marked the first time that a hurricane made landfall on Florida’s east coast in November.
Although Nicole was only a category 1, it had a massive wind field that stretched more than 500 miles, coupled with astronomically high tides that led to catastrophic storm surge. Homes and buildings collapsed into the ocean in Volusia County, with authorities scrambling to issue evacuation warnings.
Hurricane Nicole flooded streets, destroyed power lines and killed at least five people. The storm came just 42 days after deadly category 4 Hurricane Ian wreaked havoc on the west coast of Florida.
Negotiators from nearly 200 countries agreed at the UN climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, to set up a new fund for “loss and damage,” meant to help vulnerable countries cope with climate disasters. It was the first time wealthy, industrialized countries and groups, including longtime holdouts like the US and the EU, agreed to establish such a fund.
“We can’t solve the climate crisis unless we rapidly and equitably transition to clean energy and away from fossil fuels, as well as hold wealthy nations and the fossil fuel industry accountable for the damage they have done,” Rachel Cleetus, policy director and lead economist for the climate and energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told CNN.
The summer’s series of floods started off in Yellowstone National Park in June, when extreme rainfall and rapidly melting snow washed out roads and bridges in the park, causing significant damage to the nearby town of Gardiner, Montana, at the park’s entrance. Authorities had to rescue more than 100 people from the floods.
The year also brought several 1,000-year rainfall events. A 1,000-year rainfall event is one that is so intense it’s only seen on average once every 1,000 years – under normal circumstances. But extreme rainfall is becoming more common as the climate crisis pushes temperatures higher. Warmer air can hold more moisture, which loads the dice in favor of historic rainfall.
Deadly flooding swept through Eastern Kentucky and around St. Louis in July after damaging, record-breaking rainfall in a short period of time.
Wildfires threaten London during record-breaking heat wave
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CNN
Europe experienced its hottest summer on record in 2022 by a wide margin. While the heat kicked off early in France, Portugal and Spain, with the countries reaching record-warmth in May, the most significant heat came in mid-July, spreading across the UK and central Europe.
The UK, in particular, topped 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) for the first time on record. Stephen Belcher, the UK Met Office’s chief scientist, said this would have been “virtually impossible” in an “undisrupted climate.”
Throughout western Europe, the heatwaves gravely increased wildfire risk, with one London fire official noting that the 40-degree day led to an “unprecedented day in the history of the London Fire Brigade.”
As water levels drop at this major lake, bodies begin to appear
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CNN
The past few years have been a reality check for western states that heavily rely on the Colorado River for water and electricity. Plagued by decades of overuse and a climate change-fueled drought, the river that serves 40 million people in seven western states and Mexico is draining at an alarming rate.
The water levels in its two main reservoirs – Lake Mead and Lake Powell – have plunged rapidly, threatening drinking water supply and power generation. In late July, Lake Mead – the country’s largest reservoir – bottomed out and has only rebounded a few feet off record lows. Its rapidly plunging levels revealed human remains from the 1970s and a sunken vessel from World War II.
The federal government implemented its first-ever mandatory water cuts this year for states that draw from the Colorado River, and those cuts will be even deeper starting in January 2023.
Floods caused by record monsoon rain and melting glaciers in Pakistan’s northern mountain regions claimed the lives of more than 1,400 people this summer, with millions more affected by clean water and food shortages. More than a third of Pakistan was underwater, satellite images showed, and authorities warned it would take months for the flood waters to recede in the country’s hardest-hit areas.
UN Secretary General António Guterres said the Pakistani people are facing “a monsoon on steroids,” referring to the role that the climate crisis had in supercharging the extreme rainfall. The hard-hit provinces Sindh and Balochistan saw rainfall more than 500% of average during the monsoon season.
Hurricane Ian was a Category 4 storm when it made landfall in southwest Florida in late September and left a trail of destruction from the Caribbean to the Carolinas. Insured losses from Ian are expected to reach up to $65 billion, according to recent data from reinsurance company Swiss Re.
The storm first struck Cuba before undergoing rapid intensification from a tropical storm to a category 3 hurricane in just 24 hours – something scientists told CNN is part of a trend for the most dangerous storms. That same week, Super Typhoon Noru in the Philippines grew from the equivalent of a category 1 hurricane to a category 5 overnight as residents around Manila slept, catching officials and residents unaware and unable to prepare.
Hurricane Ian’s size and intensity allowed it to build up a storm surge higher than any ever observed in Southwest Florida, devastating Fort Myers and Cape Coral. Ian killed more than 100 people, most by drowning. It will likely be one of the costliest hurricanes on record not only in Florida, but in the US.
At the end of 2021, when the UN climate conference (COP26) wrapped up in Glasgow, none of those present could have suspected that a war in Ukraine would throw the global economy into turmoil, convincing many nations to suspend their commitments to a low carbon economy, as they scrambled to reduce their dependence on Russian oil and gas supplies, and secure fossil fuel supplies elsewhere.
Meanwhile, a host of studies pointed to the continued warming of the Earth, and the failure of humanity to lower carbon emissions, and get to grips with the existential threat of the climate emergency.
Nevertheless, the UN continued to lead on the slow, painstaking, but essential task of achieving international climate agreements, whilst putting sustained pressure on major economies to make greater efforts to cut their fossil fuel use, and support developing countries, whose citizens are bearing the brunt of the droughts, floods and extreme weather resulting from man-made climate change.
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) released a litany of stark reports throughout the year. A January study, announcing that 2021 had joined the top seven warmest years on record, set the tone for the year.
In Summer, when record heatwaves were recorded in several European countries, the agency warned that we should get used to more to come over the next few years, whilst Africa can expect a worsening food crisis, centred on the Horn of Africa, displacing millions of people: four out of five countries on the continent are unlikely to have sustainably managed water resources by 2030.
Whilst some regions suffered from a lack of water, others were hit by catastrophic floods. In Pakistan, a national emergency was declared in August, following heavy flooding and landslides caused by monsoon rains which, at the height of the crisis, saw around a third of the country underwater. Tens of millions were displaced.
Unprecedented floods in Chad affected more than 340,000 people in August and, in October, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) declared that some 3.4 million people in west and central Africa needed aid, amid the worst floods in a decade.
In its October Greenhouse Gas Bulletin, WMO detailed record levels of the three main gases – carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane, which saw the biggest year-on-year jump in concentrations in 40 years, identifying human activity as a principal factor in the changing climate.
Yet, despite all the evidence that a shift to a low-carbon economy is urgently needed, the world’s major economies responded to the energy crisis precipitated by the war in Ukraine by reopening old power plants and searching for new oil and gas suppliers.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres decried their reaction, calling it delusional, at an Austrian climate summit in June, and arguing that if they had invested in renewable energy in the past, these countries would have avoided the price instability of the fossil fuel markets.
At an energy event held in Washington DC the same month, Mr. Guterres compared the behaviour of the fossil fuel industry to the activities of major tobacco companies in the mid-twentieth century: “like tobacco interests, fossil fuel interests and their financial accomplices must not escape responsibility”, he said “The argument of putting climate action aside to deal with domestic problems also rings hollow”.
Clean, healthy environment a universal human right
The July decision by the UN General Assembly to declare that access to a clean and healthy environment is a universal human right was hailed as an important milestone, building on a similar text adopted by the Human Rights Council in 2021.
Mr. Guterres said in statement that the landmark development would help to reduce environmental injustices, close protection gaps and empower people, especially those that are in vulnerable situations, including environmental human rights defenders, children, youth, women and indigenous peoples.
The importance of this move was underscored in October by Ian Fry, the first UN Special Rapporteur on the Protection of Human Rights in the context of Climate Change. Mr. Fry told UN News that the resolution is already starting to have an effect, with the European Union discussing how to incorporate it within national legislation and constitutions.
Breakthrough agreements reached at UN climate conferences
The year was punctuated by three important climate-related UN summits – the Ocean Conference in June, the COP27 Climate Conference in November, and the much-delayed COP15 Biodiversity Conference in December – which demonstrated that the organization achieves far more than simply stating the dire climate situation, and calling for change.
At each event progress was made on advancing international commitments to protect the environment, and reducing the harm and destruction caused by human activity.
The Ocean Conference saw critical issues discussed, and new ideas generated. World leaders admitted to deep alarm at the global emergency facing the Ocean, and renewed their commitment to take urgent action, cooperate at all levels, and fully achieve targets as soon as possible.
More than 6,000 participants, including 24 Heads of State and Government, and over 2,000 representatives of civil society attended the Conference, advocating for urgent and concrete actions to tackle the ocean crisis.
They stressed that science-based and innovative actions, along with international cooperation, are essential to provide the necessary solutions.
‘Loss and damage’ funding agreed, in win for developing countries
COP27, the UN Climate Conference, which was held in Egypt in November, seemed destined to end without any agreement, as talks dragged on way beyond the official end of the summit.
Nevertheless, negotiators somehow managed to not only agree on the wording of an outcome document, but also establish a funding mechanism to compensate vulnerable nations for the loss and damage caused by climate-induced disasters.
These nations have spent decades arguing for such a provision, so the inclusion was hailed as a major advance. Details on how the mechanism will work, and who will benefit, will now be worked out in the coming months.
However, little headway was made on other key issues, particularly on the phasing out of fossil fuels, and tightened language on the need to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Enhanced biodiversity protection promised in Montreal
After two years of delays and postponements resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, the fifteenth UN biodiversity conference, COP15, finally took place in Montreal this December, concluding with an agreement to protect 30 per cent of the planet’s lands, coastal areas, and inland waters by the end of the decade. Inger Andersen, the head of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), described the outcome as a “first step in resetting our relationship with the natural world”.
The world’s biodiversity is in a perilous state, with around one million species facing extinction. UN experts agree that the crisis will grow, with catastrophic results for humanity, unless we interact with nature in a more sustainable way.
The deal, officially the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, includes impressive commitments, but these now need to be turned into action. This has been a major sticking point at previous biodiversity conferences, but it is hoped that a platform, launched at COP15, to help countries ramp up implementation, will help to turn the blueprint into reality.
Aerial view of the 5000 square meter roof full of solar panels, in one of the pavilions of La Rural, the busiest fair and exhibition center in Buenos Aires. It is the largest private solar park in the capital of Argentina and required an investment of almost one million dollars. CREDIT: Courtesy of La Rural
by Daniel Gutman (buenos aires)
Inter Press Service
BUENOS AIRES, Dec 23 (IPS) – With large projects held back by the economic crisis and lack of infrastructure, Argentina seems to be looking at an alternative path towards a more sustainable energy mix involving small renewable energy projects, promoted by environmentally aware industries, businesses and private users.
The initiatives are aimed at covering their own consumption, sometimes with the addition of so-called distributed generation, in which user-generators who have a surplus of electricity can inject it into the national power grid and thus generate a tariff credit.
Distributed generation initiatives have just surpassed 1,000 projects already in operation, according to the latest official data.
At the same time, this month saw the inauguration of the largest private solar energy park in the city of Buenos Aires, an initiative of the Argentine Rural Society (SRA), the traditional business chamber of agricultural producers.
The park was installed in the exhibition center the SRA owns in the capital of this South American country, to supply part of its consumption with an investment of almost one million dollars and more than 1,000 solar panels.
“Small private renewable energy projects and distributed generation will be the ones to increase installed capacity in the coming years, because the electricity transmission and distribution system sets strong limits on large projects,” Mariela Beljansky, a specialist in energy and climate change issues, told IPS.
Beljansky, who was national director of Electricity Generation until early 2022, added: “Otherwise there will be no way to meet the growth targets for renewable sources set by Argentina, as part of its climate change mitigation commitments under the Paris Agreement.”
Argentina presented its National Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Plan, which includes 250 measures to be implemented by 2030, at the 27th Conference of the Parties (COP27) on climate change held by the United Nations in the Egyptian city of Sharm El Sheikh in November.
The National Secretariat for Climate Change estimated the total value of the plan’s implementation at 185.5 billion dollars, four times more than the debt Argentina incurred in 2018 with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which has generated a sharp deterioration of the economy since then.
According to the data included in the plan, the energy sector is the largest generator of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the country, generating 51 percent of emissions.
Although renewable sources (with wind projects in first place and solar in second place) reached a record in October, supplying 17.8 percent of total electricity demand, the energy mix continues to be sustained basically by oil, natural gas and large hydroelectric projects.
Furthermore, the country has not decided to slow down the development of fossil fuels. The main reason is that it has large reserves of shale natural gas in the Vaca Muerta field in the south of the country, which has been attracting the interest of international investors for years. The climate change plan sets the goal of using natural gas as a transition fuel to replace oil as much as possible.
The plan also includes the objectives of developing a variety of renewable energy sources (wind, solar, small hydro, biogas and biomass) and also distributed generation, “directly at the points of consumption” and connected to the public power grid, at the residential and commercial levels.
Large renewable projects experienced strong growth between 2016 and 2019, on the back of an official plan that guaranteed the purchase of electricity at attractive prices for investors, but since then there have been virtually no new initiatives.
This truck functions as a mobile health center, travelling through towns in Patagonia, in southern Argentina. The roof of the vehicle is covered with solar panels that provide electricity to the four mobile consulting rooms and diagnostic imaging equipment. CREDIT: Courtesy of Utorak
Consumption subsidies
“In Argentina’s current situation, where there is practically no financing, and there are restrictions on importing equipment, high inflation and economic uncertainty, it is difficult to think about large renewable energy parks, and small projects become more attractive,” Marcelo Alvarez, a member of the board of the Argentine Renewable Energy Chamber (Cader), told IPS.
Alvarez pointed out that what conspires against small private and distributed generation projects are the subsidies that the Argentine government has been providing for years to energy consumption, including those families with high purchasing power that do not need them.
“Artificially cheap electricity rates and the scarcity of credit discourage the growth of renewables,” Alvarez said.
“The proof of this is that more than half of the distributed generation projects in operation are in the province of Cordoba (in the center of the country), where electricity prices are three times more expensive than in Buenos Aires and there is a special line of credit from the local bank (Bancor, which grants ‘eco-sustainable loans’) for renewable equipment,” he said.
Indeed, according to data from the Energy Secretariat, there are 1,051 user undertakings that generate their own electricity and inject their surplus into the grid and 573 of them are in the province of Cordoba.
View of photovoltaic panels in a private neighborhood in Pilar, some 50 kilometers from Buenos Aires. Solar panels have become part of the landscape in the suburbs of Argentina’s capital city. CREDIT: Courtesy of Utorak
Private ventures
On Dec. 15, the Rural Society inaugurated the largest private solar park in Buenos Aires, in the 42,000 square meter covered area where the country’s most important fairs and exhibitions are held. The investment reportedly amounted to almost one million dollars.
“We have 42,000 square meters of roofs in our pavilions. It is a very important flat surface for the placement of solar panels, so we had been thinking about it for several years. We had done a pilot project in 2019, but then everything was delayed by the pandemic, which forced us to close the venue,” Claudio Dowdall, general manager of La Rural, told IPS.
“At this stage we used 5,000 square meters of roofs, on which we placed 1,136 photovoltaic panels, with a total power of 619 kW. This is equivalent to the average consumption of 210 family homes and, for us, it is between 30 and 40 percent of the electricity we use,” he added.
Andrés Badino, founder of Utorak, a company that has been dedicated to renewable energy for families and companies for more than five years, confirms that consultations and demand are growing in the sector.
“People’s interest has been growing because of increased environmental awareness and, also, because of what can be saved on electricity bills for residential users and for educational institutions and healthcare centers as well,” Badino said.
“Argentina has a national industry for the production of solar thermal tanks, but not for the manufacture of panels, inverters or batteries, despite the fact that the country has one of the largest reserves in the world, the main component. But we are confident that international prices will go down and drive demand,” he said.
TORONTO, Canada, Dec 23 (IPS) – A year that started with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and is ending with famine in Africa, while still spreading death and misery through an enduring pandemic and a deteriorating climate crisis — 2022 has been an apocalyptic warning of the frailty of our planet and the woeful shortcomings of humankind.
Farhana Haque Rahman
Beyond the stark statistics of millions of people displaced by war and natural disasters, it has been a 12 months that tragically highlighted our global interconnections and how a confluence of events and trends can bring another year of record levels of hunger.
Tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians (numbers given by the UN and involved parties vary enormously) have been killed in Ukraine since Russia launched war on February 24. More than 7.8 million Ukrainians have fled the country. Billions of dollars have been spent on armaments.
But the impact of the war has been felt worldwide, driving up prices of basic commodities such as oil, gas, grain, sunflower oil and fertilisers. Somalia, now in the grip of the worst drought to hit the Horn of Africa in 40 years, used to import 90 per cent of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine.
Commodities have been weaponised. Countries slipped back into recession, just as they were slowly recovering from the economic distress of Covid-19 lockdowns. A deepening relationship between sanctioned Russia and an energy- hungry China exacerbated existing tensions with the US over Taiwan. The result? China broke off climate cooperation efforts with the US in the run-up to the COP27 climate conference hosted by Egypt in November with 200 countries and 35,000 people attending.
Against the backdrop of devastating floods in Pakistan and West Africa, and with 2022 on its way to becoming one of the five hottest years on record, agriculture and food security joined the COP27 agenda. Talks ran into extra time, as they tend to, and countries of the global South emerged with the landmark creation of a special fund paid by wealthier countries to address the Loss and Damage caused by climate change in the most vulnerable nations.
“After 30 contentious years, delayed tactics by wealthy countries, a renewed spirit of solidarity, empathy and cooperation prevailed, resulting in the historic establishment of a dedicated fund,” said Yamide Dagnet, director for climate justice at the Open Society Foundations, reflecting a sense of hard fought victory among developing countries.
Still unresolved however is which countries will give money and to whom. China in particular seems uneasy over which category it belongs to. However COP27 joined its 26 forerunners since 1995 in not reaching a binding agreement on cutting fossil fuel burning which has continued to rise globally, except for a brief pandemic dip. For this, many branded it a failure. “Humanity has a choice: cooperate or perish. It is either a Climate Solidarity Pact – or a Collective Suicide Pact,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the opening plenary session. By the end, many felt the conference had concluded with the latter. Rather than falling, the latest estimates from the Global Carbon Project show that total worldwide CO2 emissions in 2022 have reached near-record levels.
Victims of devastating floods, heatwaves and forest fires, and severe drought in Central Sahel and East Africa surely needed no confirmation from the final decision text of COP27 which recognises “the fundamental priority of safeguarding food security and ending hunger” and the vulnerability of food production to climate change.
In this respect, COP27 recognised the importance of nature-based solutions – a theme driven by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in ringing alarm bells on the degraded soil, water sources and eco-systems caused by intensive agriculture with overuse of fertilisers and pesticides.
According to FAO, more than 25 percent of arable soils worldwide are degraded, and the equivalent of a football pitch of soil is eroded every five seconds. The planet’s bio-diversity is being devastated as a result. As highlighted by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) in stressing the vital connections between Nature and people, a landmark report in July found that 50,000 wild species provide food, osmetics, shelter, clothing, medicine and inspiration. Many face extinction.
As international agencies and NGOs (and media outlets) jostled and competed for funding to deal with the fallout from wars and climate emergencies, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) which is active in the Sahel cautioned that only 1.7 per cent of all climate finance reaches small-scale producers in developing countries and as little as 8% of overseas aid goes to projects focused primarily on gender equality. Women’s empowerment has been made a major focus of ASAP+, IFAD’s new climate change financing mechanism.
Women and girls are paying “an unacceptably high price” among communities hit by severe drought in the Horn of Africa, according to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA). It launched a $113.7 million appeal to scale-up life-saving reproductive health and protection services, including establishment of mobile and static clinics in displacement sites.
Also overshadowed by wars and pandemics in 2022 were marginalised communities lacking a voice, suffering diseases such as leprosy or exploited in the form of child labour.
Yohei Sasakawa, WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination, says many issues have been sidelined because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Society has the knowledge and means to stop and cure leprosy, he says in the ‘Don’t Forget Leprosy’ campaign by the Sasakawa Leprosy Initiative.
“When people are still being discriminated against even after being cured, society has a disease. If we can cure society of this disease—discrimination—it would be truly epoch-making,” he told IPS.
A similar message was delivered by Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi who told the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour that a mere $53 billion per annum – equivalent to 10 days of military spending – would ensure all children in all countries benefit from social protection.
International Labour Organisation and UNICEF statistics from 2020 show at least 160 million children are involved in child labour, a surge of 8.4 million in four years. Children denied education became a burning issue in Afghanistan in March when the Taliban declared that girls would be banned from secondary education. The UN said 1.1 million girls were affected. The late-night reversal of a decision by Taliban authorities to allow girls from grades 7 to 12 to return to school was met with outrage and distress, inside and outside Afghanistan.
Denial of human rights to girls and women has fuelled the desire of many to get out of Afghanistan and seek a better life elsewhere, adding to the millions around the world forced to flee their homes because of conflict, repression or disaster. The Ukraine conflict has displaced more than 14 million people, about a third of the population.
A UN Office on Drugs and Crime report on trafficking warns that refugees from Ukraine are at risk of including sexual exploitation, forced labour, illegal adoption and surrogacy, forced begging and forced criminality.
As they come over border crossings into Poland, refugees – including victims of rape – are greeted with posters and flyers carrying warnings about jail terms for breaking local abortion laws, images of miscarried foetuses, and a quote from Mother Theresa saying: “Abortion is the greatest threat to peace”.
UNDP, which is assisting the Ukraine government in getting access to public services for IDPs, says in its 2022 report, Turning the tide on internal displacement, that earlier and increased support to development is an essential condition for emerging from crisis in a sustainable way.
“More efforts are needed to end the marginalization of internally displaced people, who must be able to exercise their full rights as citizens including through access to vital services such as health care, education, social protection and job opportunities” said Achim Steiner, UNDP Administrator.
Nearly one million Rohingya refugees languishing in refugee camps in Bangladesh after being driven out of Myanmar in waves since 2016 would surely agree.
Asif Saleh, executive director of BRAC, said to be the world’s largest NGO and founded by Sir Fazle after the independence of Bangladesh in 1972, says work needs to “shift towards a development-like approach from a very short-term umanitarian crisis-focused approach”. But the only solution for the Rohingya refugees is their sustainable and voluntary repatriation to Myanmar. As 2022 closes, that unfortunately looks highly unlikely as the military junta that seized power in 2021 fights ethnic armed organisations on multiple fronts.
There was one seismic milestone event that happened in late 2022 although no one is quite sure exactly where and when. The few people to witness it were not aware either – not that it prevented the UN from declaring it a special day. The birth of the 8 billionth person was celebrated on November 15. The world’s population has doubled from 4 billion in 1974 and UN projections suggest we will be supporting about 9.7 billion people in 2050. Global population is forecast to peak at about 10.4 billion in the 2080s.
Inger Andersen, executive director of the UN environment programme, sent a message to the baby, and the rest of the world, as countries meet in Montreal for the COP15 biodiversity conference this month.
“We’ve just welcomed the 8 billionth member of the human race on this planet. That’s a wonderful birth of a baby, of course. But we need to understand that the more people there are, the more we put the Earth under heavy pressure,” she said.
Farhana Haque Rahman is Senior Vice President of IPS Inter Press Service and Executive Director IPS Noram; she served as the elected Director General of IPS from 2015-2019. A journalist and communications expert, she is a former senior official of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Fund for Agricultural Development.
The clear need to do much more to cut greenhouse gas emissions was again underscored throughout events in 2022, said the UN weather agency, advocating for strengthened climate change adaptation, including universal access to early warnings.
“This year we have faced several dramatic weather disasters which claimed far too many lives and livelihoods and undermined health, food, energy and water security and infrastructure”, said WMO chief Petteri Taalas.
On warmest track
While Global temperature figures for 2022 will be released in mid-January, the past eight years are on track to be the eight warmest on record, according to WMO.
While the persistence of a cooling La Niña event, now in its third year, means that 2022 will not be the warmest year on record, its cooling impact will be short-lived and not reverse the long-term warming trend caused by record levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in our atmosphere.
Early warnings, increasing investment in the basic global observing system and building resilience to extreme weather and climate will be among WMO priorities in 2023 – the year that the WMO community celebrates its 150th anniversary.
WMO will also promote a new way of monitoring the sinks and sources of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide by using the ground-based Global Atmosphere Watch, satellite and assimilation modelling, which allows better understanding of how key greenhouse gases behave in the atmosphere.
Climate Indicators
Greenhouse gases are just one climate indicator used to observe levels.
Sea levels, which have doubled since 1993; ocean heat content; and acidification are also at recorded highs.
A young boy stands in front of a waterhole in a drought zone in Bangladesh.
National heat tolls
Although 2022 did not break global temperature records, it topped many national heat records throughout the world.
India and Pakistan experienced soaring heat in March and April. China had the most extensive and long-lasting heatwave since national records began and the second-driest summer on record.
And parts of the northern hemisphere were exceptionally hot and dry.
A large area centred around the central-northern part of Argentina, as well as in southern Bolivia, central Chile, and most of Paraguay and Uruguay, experienced record-breaking temperatures during two consecutive heatwaves in late November and early December 2022.
“Record breaking heatwaves have been observed in China, Europe, North and South America”, the WMO chief added. “The long-lasting drought in the Horn of Africa threatens a humanitarian catastrophe
And while large parts of Europe sweltered in repeated episodes of extreme heat, the United Kingdom hit a new national record in July, when the temperature topped more than 40°C for the very first time.
Record breaking rain
In East Africa, rainfall has been below average throughout four consecutive wet seasons – the longest in 40 years – triggering a major humanitarian crisis affecting millions of people, devastating agriculture, and killing livestock, especially in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia.
Record breaking rain in July and August led to extensive flooding in Pakistan, which caused at least 1,700 deaths, displaced 7.9 million and affected 33 million people.
“One third of Pakistan was flooded, with major economic losses and human casualties”, reminded Mr. Taalas.
KlimaDAO’s advanced selective retirement tool gives users unprecedented choice over digital carbon credits used for offsetting.
Press Release –
Dec 20, 2022 13:00 EST
SAN FRANCISCO, December 20, 2022 (Newswire.com)
– KlimaDAO, the leading provider of digital carbon credits, has today announced the launch of its advanced retirement tool for carbon offsetting. The tool gives users the option to selectively filter, choose and retire carbon credits from over 20 million tonnes of available digital carbon credits.
The tool is now available on KlimaDAO’s app, and it allows users to specify their preferred carbon credit criteria against hundreds of unique carbon projects from across the globe. Users have the option to select credit by “technology type”, “region” and “vintage” (i.e. the year the credit was created) to quickly filter available options and inform their selection.
In a market that is typically challenging to navigate due to poor market accessibility and limited market data, the tool gives users the ability to easily access the available options for digital carbon credits based on their priorities in just a few clicks.
Given the permissionless nature of the KlimaDAO ecosystem, the tool enables third parties to quickly meet their own needs, or those of their clients, without having to wait for suppliers to respond to requests.
Sy Zygy, Product Lead at KlimaDAO, said, “The advanced selective retirement feature offers our users the ability to quickly filter carbon projects according to their offsetting requirements within minutes, without needing to undertake extensive desk-based research or waiting for suppliers to fulfill their needs, which can take weeks. By giving users optionality over KlimaDAO’s entire carbon credit supply, we can enable the market to function more efficiently for the benefit of all stakeholders.”
KlimaDAO will hold the ON SET Webinar series beginning in February 2023; the series will provide an introduction to the digital carbon market and provide product demonstrations for stakeholders interested in using digital carbon tools. Follow this link to sign-up for the Webinar.
About KlimaDAO
KlimaDAO’s mission is to accelerate the delivery of climate finance globally by building the transparent, neutral, and public infrastructure needed to scale the Digital Carbon Market. KlimaDAO provides tools, products and services to make accessing this market easy for all users. Contact us by filling out this form.
Government delegations celebrate the close of the historic negotiation at COP15 of the New Global Framework on Biodiversity in the early hours of the morning on Monday Dec. 19, at the Palais des Congrès in Montreal, Canada. CREDIT: Mike Muzurakis/IISD
by Emilio Godoy (montreal)
Inter Press Service
Its fate now depends on the new Kunming-Montreal Global Framework on Biodiversity, which was agreed by the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) on Monday Dec. 19, at the end of the summit held since Dec. 7 at the Palais des Congrès in Montreal.
Now, the world’s countries must translate the results into national biodiversity strategies, to comply with the new accord. In this regard, David Ainsworth, spokesman for the CBD, in force since 1993 and based in Montreal, announced the creation of a global accelerator for the drafting of national plans, with the support of U.N. agencies.
COP15 of the Convention on Biological Diversity approved a new program to protect the world’s natural heritage for the next 10 years during the summit held in the Canadian city of Montreal. The picture shows a statue of a polar bear, whose species is threatened by melting ice and habitat loss, on a street in Montreal. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS
The menu of agreements
COP15, whose theme was “Ecological Civilization: Building a shared future for all life on earth”, approved four objectives on improving the status of biodiversity, reducing species extinction, fair and appropriate sharing of benefits from access to and use of genetic resources, and means of implementation of the agreement.
In addition, the plenary of the summit, which brought together some 15,000 people representing governments, non-governmental organizations, academia, international bodies and companies, agreed on 23 goals within the Global Framework, for the conservation and management of 30 percent of terrestrial areas and 30 percent of marine areas by 2030, in what is known in U.N. jargon as the 30×30.
This includes the complete or partial restoration of at least 30 percent of degraded terrestrial and marine ecosystems, as well as the reduction of the loss of areas of high biological importance to almost zero.
Likewise, the agreement reached by the 196 States Parties at COP15 includes the halving of food waste, the elimination or reform of at least 500 billion dollars a year in subsidies harmful to biodiversity, and at least 200 billion dollars in funding for biodiversity by 2030 from public and private sources.
It also endorsed increasing financial transfers from countries of the industrialized North to nations of the developing South by at least 20 billion dollars by 2025 and 30 billion dollars by 2030, and the voluntary publication by companies for monitoring, evaluation and disclosure of the impact of their activities on biodiversity.
The Global Environment Facility (GEF) will manage a new fund, whose operation will be defined by the countries over the next two years.
With regard to digital sequence information (DSI) on genetic resources, the Global Framework stipulates the establishment of a multilateral fund for benefit-sharing between providers and users of genetic resources and states that governments will define the final figure at COP16 in Turkey in 2024.
The Global Framework also contains gender and youth perspectives, two strong demands of the process that was initially scheduled to end in the city of Kunming, China, in 2020. But because that country was unable to host mass meetings due to its zero-tolerance policy towards COVID-19, a first virtual chapter was held there and another later in person, and the final one now took place in Montreal.
The states parties are required to report at least every five years on their national compliance with the Global Framework. The CBD will include national information submitted in February 2026 and June 2029 in its status and trend reports.
With some differences, civil society organizations and indigenous peoples gave a nod to the Global Framework, but issued warnings. Viviana Figueroa, representative of the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity, and Simone Lovera, policy director of the Global Forest Coalition, applauded the agreement in conversations with IPS, while pointing out its risks.
“It’s a good step forward, because it recognizes the role of indigenous peoples, the use of biodiversity and the role of traditional knowledge,” said Figueroa, an Omaguaca indigenous lawyer from Argentina whose organization brings together indigenous groups from around the world to present their positions at international environmental meetings.
“It has been a long process, to which native peoples have contributed and have made proposals. The most important aspects that we proposed have been recognized and we hope to work together with the countries,” she added.
But, she remarked, “the most important thing will be the implementation.”
Goal C and targets one, three, five, nine, 13, 21 and 22 of the Global Framework relate to respect for the rights of native and local communities.
Lovera, whose organization brings together NGOs and indigenous groups, said the accord “recognizes the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities, and of women. It also includes a recommendation to withdraw subsidies and reduce public and private investments in destructive activities, such as large-scale cattle ranching and oil palm monoculture.”
But indigenous and human rights organizations have questioned the 30×30 approach on the grounds that it undermines ancestral rights, blocks access to aboriginal territories, and requires consultation and unpressured, informed consent for protected areas prior to any decision on the future of those areas.
Discussions at the Convention on Biological Diversity summit intensified in the last few days of COP15 and ran late into the night, as in this session on health and biodiversity. But in the end, agreement was reached on a new Global Framework on Biodiversity, which will be binding on the 196 states parties. CREDIT: IISD/ENB
Major challenge
While the Global Framework has indicators and monitoring mechanisms and is legally binding, it has no actual teeth, and the precedent of the failed Aichi Targets casts a shadow over its future, especially with the world’s poor track record on international agreements.
The Aichi Biodiversity Targets, adopted in 2010 in that Japanese city during the CBD’s COP10 and which its 196 states parties failed to meet in 2020, included the creation of terrestrial and marine protected areas; the fight against pollution and invasive species; respect for indigenous knowledge; and the restoration of damaged ecosystems.
Several estimates put the amount needed to protect biological heritage at 700 billion dollars, which means there is still an enormous gap to be closed.
In more than 30 years, the GEF has disbursed over 22 billion dollars and helped transfer another 120 billion dollars to more than 5,000 regional and national projects. For the new period starting in 2023, the fund is counting on some five billion dollars in financing.
In addition, the Small Grants Program has supported around 27,000 community initiatives in developing countries.
“There is little public funding, more is needed,” Lovera said. “It’s sad that they say the private sector must fund biodiversity. In indigenous territories money is needed. They can do much more than governments with less money. Direct support can be more effective and they will meet the commitments.”
The activist also criticized the use of offsets, a mechanism whereby one area can be destroyed and another can be restored elsewhere – already used in countries such as Chile, Colombia and Mexico.
“This system allows us to destroy 70 percent of the planet while preserving the other 30 percent,” Lovera said. “It is madness. For indigenous peoples and local communities, it is very negative, because they lose their own biodiversity and the compensation is of no use to them, because it happens somewhere else.”
Figueroa said institutions that already manage funds could create direct mechanisms for indigenous peoples, as is the case with the Small Grants Program.
Of the 609 commitments that organizations, companies and individuals have already made voluntarily at COP15, 303 are aimed at the conservation and restoration of terrestrial ecosystems, 188 at alliances, and 159 at adaptation to climate change and reduction of polluting emissions.
The summit also coincided with the 10th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and the 4th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits from their Utilization, both components of the CBD.
Images of the planet’s sixth mass extinction reflect the size of the challenge. More than a quarter of some 150,000 species on the IUCN Red List are threatened with extinction.
The “Living Planet Report 2022: Building a nature-positive society”, prepared by the WWF and the Institute of Zoology in London, shows that Latin America and the Caribbean has experienced the largest decline in monitored wildlife populations worldwide, with an average decline of 94 percent between 1970 and 2018.
With a decade to act, each passing day represents more biological wealth lost.
Today is Tuesday, Dec. 20, the 354th day of 2022. There are 11 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Dec. 20, 1803, the Louisiana Purchase was completed as ownership of the territory was formally transferred from France to the United States.
On this date:
In 1860, South Carolina became the first state to secede from the Union as all 169 delegates to a special convention in Charleston voted in favor of separation.
In 1864, Confederate forces evacuated Savannah, Georgia, as Union Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman nearly completed his “March to the Sea.”
In 1945, the Office of Price Administration announced the end of tire rationing, effective Jan. 1, 1946.
In 1963, the Berlin Wall was opened for the first time to West Berliners, who were allowed one-day visits to relatives in the Eastern sector for the holidays.
In 1987, more than 4,300 people were killed when the Dona Paz (DOHN’-yuh pahz), a Philippine passenger ship, collided with the tanker Vector off Mindoro island.
In 1989, the United States launched Operation Just Cause, sending troops into Panama to topple the government of Gen. Manuel Noriega.
In 1995, an American Airlines Boeing 757 en route to Cali, Colombia, slammed into a mountain, killing all but four of the 163 people aboard. In Bosnia-Herzegovina, NATO began its peacekeeping mission, taking over from the United Nations.
In 1999, the Vermont Supreme Court ruled that homosexual couples were entitled to the same benefits and protections as wedded heterosexual couples.
In 2001, the U.N. Security Council authorized a multinational force for Afghanistan.
In 2002, Trent Lott resigned as Senate Republican leader two weeks after igniting a political firestorm with racially charged remarks.
In 2005, a federal judge ruled that “intelligent design” could not be mentioned in biology classes in a Pennsylvania public school district, delivering a stinging attack on the Dover Area School Board.
In 2016, President Barack Obama designated the bulk of U.S.-owned waters in the Arctic Ocean and certain areas in the Atlantic Ocean as indefinitely off limits to future oil and gas leasing. Two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova was injured in her playing hand by a knife-wielding attacker at her Czech Republic home and underwent surgery. (The attacker was sentenced to 11 years in prison.)
Ten years ago: The State Department acknowledged major weaknesses in security and errors in judgment exposed in a scathing independent report on the deadly Sept. 11, 2012 assault on a U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya. The National Hockey League, in a labor fight with its players, announced the cancellation of the 2012-13 regular-season schedule through Jan. 14, 2013.
Five years ago: The House gave final congressional approval to a $1.5 trillion tax overhaul, the biggest package of tax changes in a generation and the first major legislative achievement of President Donald Trump and House and Senate Republicans; some Republicans warned of a potential backlash against an overhaul that offered corporations and wealthy taxpayers the biggest benefits. Cardinal Bernard Law, the disgraced former archbishop of Boston, died in Rome at the age of 86; his failure to stop child molesters in the priesthood had triggered a crisis in American Catholicism.
One year ago: In a major step to fight climate change, the Biden administration raised vehicle mileage standards to significantly reduce emissions of planet-warming greenhouse gases. Warning that extremism in the ranks was increasing, Pentagon officials issued detailed new rules prohibiting service members from actively engaging in extremist activities. Federal health officials said the omicron variant had accounted for an estimated 73% of new U.S. coronavirus infections in the preceding week. CBS and Universal Television said actor Chris Noth would no longer be part of the CBS series “The Equalizer” in the wake of sexual assault allegations against him; Noth had vehemently denied the allegations.
Today’s Birthdays: Original Mouseketeer Tommy Cole (TV: “The Mickey Mouse Club”) is 81. R&B singer-musician Walter “Wolfman” Washington is 79. Rock musician-music producer Bobby Colomby is 78. Rock musician Peter Criss is 77. Former U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue is 76. Psychic/illusionist Uri Geller is 76. Producer Dick Wolf (“Law & Order”) is 76. Rock musician Alan Parsons is 74. Actor Jenny Agutter is 70. Actor Michael Badalucco is 68. Actor Blanche Baker is 66. Rock singer Billy Bragg is 65. Rock singer-musician Mike Watt (The Secondmen, Minutemen, fIREHOSE) is 65. Actor Joel Gretsch is 59. Country singer Kris Tyler is 58. Rock singer Chris Robinson is 56. Actor Nicole deBoer is 52. Movie director Todd Phillips is 52. Singer David Cook (“American Idol”) is 40. Actor Jonah Hill is 39. Actor Bob Morley is 38. Singer JoJo is 32. Actor Colin Woodell is 31.
This past spring, Amanda Goldberg crouched in the leafy undergrowth of a southwestern Virginia forest and attempted to swab a mouse for COVID. No luck; its nose was too tiny for her tools. “You never think about nostrils until you start having to swab an animal,” Goldberg, a conservation biologist at Virginia Tech University, told me. Larger-nosed creatures that she and her team had trapped, such as raccoons and foxes, had no issue with nose swabs—but for mice, throat samples had to do. The swabs fit reasonably well into their mouths, she said, though they endured a fair bit of munching.
Goldberg’s throat-swabbing endeavors were part of a study she and her colleagues devised to answer an unexplored question: How common is COVID in wildlife? Of the 333 forest animals her team swabbed around Blacksburg, Virginia, spanning 18 species, one—an opossum—tested positive. This was to be expected, Goldberg said; catching a wild animal that happened to have an active infection right when it was swabbed was like finding Waldo. But the researchers also collected blood samples, and those were more telling about whether the animals had experienced previous bouts with COVID. Analysis by the Molecular Diagnostics Lab and the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at Virginia Tech revealed antibodies across 24 animals spanning six species, including the opossum, the Eastern gray squirrel, and two types of mice. “Our minds were blown,” Goldberg said. “It was basically every species we sent” to the lab.
That animals can get COVID is one of the earliest things we learned about the virus. Despite the endless debate over its origins, SARS-CoV-2 most likely jumped from an animal through an intermediate host to humans in Wuhan. Since then, it has since spread back to a range of animals. People have passed it to household pets, such as dogs and cats, and to a Disney movie’s worth of beasts, including lions, hippos, hyenas, tigers, mink, and hamsters. Three years into the pandemic, animals are still falling sick with COVID, just as we are. COVID is likely circulating more widely in animals than we are aware of, Edward Holmes, a biologist at the University of Sydney, told me. “In all my 30-plus years of doing work on this subject, I have never seen a virus that can infect so many animal species,” he said. More than 500 other mammal species are predicted to be highly susceptible to infection.
Given that most people nowadays aren’t fretting too much about human-to-human spread, it makes sense that animal-to-human spread has largely been forgotten. But even when there are so many other pandemic concerns, animal COVID can’t be ignored. The consequences of sustained animal transmission are exactly the same as they are in people: The more COVID spreads, the more opportunities the virus has to evolve into new variants. What’s most alarming is the chance that one of those variants could spill back into humans. As we’ve known since the pandemic started, SARS-CoV-2 is not a human virus, but one that can infect multiple animals, including humans. As long as animals are still getting COVID, we’re not out of the doghouse either.
Perhaps part of the reason COVID in animals has been overlooked—apart from the fact that they’re not people—is that most species don’t seem to get very sick. Animals that have gotten infected generally exhibit mild symptoms—typically some coughing and sluggishness, as in pumas and lions. But our research has gone only fur-deep. “We certainly can’t ask them, ‘Are you feeling headaches, or sluggish?’” said Goldberg, who worries about long-term or invisible symptoms going undiagnosed in species. And so animal COVID has lingered unchecked, increasing the chances that it could mean something bad for us.
The good news is that the overall risk of getting COVID from animals is considered low, according to the CDC. This is partly explained by evolutionary theory, which predicts that most variants that emerge in an animal population will have adapted to become better at infecting the host animal—not us. But some of them, strictly by chance, “could be highly transmissible or virulent in humans,” Holmes said. “It’s an unpredictable process.” His concern is not that animals will start infecting people en masse—your neighbors are far likelier to do that than raccoons—but that in animals, SARS-CoV-2 could form new variants that can spill over into people. Some scientists believe that Omicron emerged this way in mice, though evidence remains scant.
A troubling sign is that there’s already some evidence that COVID has made its way from humans to animals, where it mutated, and then made its way back into humans. Take white-tailed deer, by now a well-known COVID host. Every fall, hunters take to the golden meadows and reddening forests of southwestern Ontario to shoot the deer, giving researchers an opportunity to test some of the hunted animals for COVID. The species has been infected with the same variants circulating widely in humans—a handful of Staten Island deer caught Omicron last winter, for example—which suggests that people are infecting them. How the deer get infected still isn’t clear: Extended face time with humans, nosing around in trash, or slurping up our wastewater are all possibilities.
The researchers in Canada found not only that some of the animals tested positive, but also that the variant they carried had never before been seen in humans, indicating that the virus had been spreading and mutating within the population for a long time, Brad Pickering, a research scientist for the Canadian government who studied the deer, told me. In fact, the new variant is among the most evolutionarily divergent ones identified so far. But despite its differences, it appeared to have infected at least one person who had interacted with deer the week before falling ill. “We can’t make a direct link between them,” Pickering said, but the fact that such a highly diverged deer variant was detected in a human is very suggestive of how that person got sick.
This research adds to the small but growing body of evidence that the COVID we spread to animals could come back to bite us. Fortunately, this particular spillback does not appear to have had serious consequences for humans; rogue deer variants don’t seem to be circulating in southern Canada. But this is not the sole documented instance of animal-to-human spread: People have been infected by mink in the Netherlands, hamsters in Hong Kong, and a cat in Thailand. Other spillbacks have probably occurred and gone unnoticed. So far, no data show that the animal variants that have spread to humans are more dangerous for us. Even if a potential animal variant isn’t the next Omicron, it could still be better at dodging our existing treatments and vaccines, Pickering said.
But there is also, frankly, a lack of data. Local wildlife-surveillance efforts led by researchers like Goldberg and Pickering are ongoing, but they do not exist in most countries, Holmes said. An international database of known animal infections, maintained by Complexity Science Hub Vienna, is a promising start. An interactive map shows the locations of previously infected animals, including large hairy armadillos (Argentina), manatees (Brazil), and cats (everywhere). At the very least, with animal COVID, “we need to know what species it’s in, in what abundance, and genetically, what those variants look like,” Holmes said. “It’s absolutely critical to know where [the virus] is going.” Without this, there is no way of knowing how often spillback occurs and whether it puts humans at risk. And we can’t tell whether new COVID variants are also putting animals in danger, Goldberg said; a devastating Omicron-like variant could emerge in their populations too.
The steps we need to take to mitigate the animal-COVID problem—and prevent other zoonotic diseases from jumping into humans—are clear, even if they don’t seem to be happening. Eliminating wet markets where wild animals are sold is an obvious preventive measure, but it has been difficult to implement because the livelihoods and diets of many people, especially in the global South, depend on them. As climate change and land development decimate even more habitats, wildlife will be forced into ever-closer quarters with us, fostering an even more efficient exchange of viruses between species. Unlike mask wearing and other straightforward options for curbing the human spread of COVID, preventing its transmission to, from, and among animals will require major upheavals to the way our societies run, likely far greater than we are willing to commit to.
Humans tend to act like COVID ends up afflicting us after traveling through a long chain of species. But to think so is like living in the Middle Ages, Holmes said, when the Earth was considered the center of the universe. As we learned then, we are not that important: Humans are but a node in an immense network of species that viruses move through in many directions. Just as animal viruses infect us, human viruses can spread to animals (measles, for example, kills a variety of great apes). There are definitely bigger problems than animal COVID—no one needs to hunker down for fear of sneezing deer—but as long as animals keep getting infected, we can’t overlook what that means for us. Paying attention to animal COVID often starts with a single swab—and a snout to stick it in.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Cities are a key contributor to climate change.
As home to 56% of the world’s population, cities produce more than 70% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. High levels of economic activity mean high energy use, particularly in the building and transportation sectors.
Building cities takes significant resources, and massive highways and parking lots do not capture carbon or prevent flooding as trees and wetlands do.
As a result, cities produce significant amounts of air pollution. About 86% of people living in cities have seven times greater exposure to air pollutants than World Health Organization guidelines. This excess exposure impacts physical health and can even make you dumber.
Cities also produce lots of waste and will keep making more. By 2050, cities will discard 3.4 billion tons of garbage. Not only does it take up valuable land, but waste also produces methane, making it responsible for 5% of GHG emissions globally.
While there are about 14,000 cities around the world contributing to this problem, a recent report found that 25 mega cities (almost half of them in China) produce 52% of global GHG emissions.
Here’s a look at the big polluters and some green solutions they’re employing to make these sprawling, urban areas cleaner and more livable.
Air pollution in Beijing
Home to around 21 million people, Beijing is one of the top 10 polluters, primarily due to industrial buildings and on-road transportation. For this reason, air pollution has been a significant area of focus for Beijing since the 2008 Olympics.
Entrepreneurs in China are working to help people deal with toxic air, launching companies that create everything from air filters for homes, which use sensors to detect pollution and fans to direct that pollution out of the home, to bottled air designed to give people a hit of oxygen on particularly polluted days.
These startups may be doing wonders for individual health, but there’s still an opportunity for businesses to help prevent pollution by increasing energy efficiency or decarbonizing transport.
Transportation emissions in Los Angeles
Los Angeles is known for its sprawling, 6-lane freeways and epic traffic jams. Like Beijing, on-road transportation accounts for a substantial amount of Los Angeles’s GHG emissions, 19% to be exact.
Gasonline-powered private vehicles and industrial trucking that use fossil fuels account for most of LA’s on-road pollution, including GHG emissions, air pollutants, and heat and noise pollution.
But new technologies are in the works that help get people where they need to go while reducing private vehicle trips. Micromobility projects, such as bike shares and scooters, allow people to ditch cars and rideshares for shorter trips using these smaller, zero-emission vehicles. Apps like Moovit, a map platform that improves access to public transportation by giving live updates on public transport services, get people out of cars and onto environmentally friendly transit options.
The government is also being proactive. Last month, California air quality officials released a bold climate plan that requires California’s emissions to be reduced by at least 40% by 2030 and 85% by 2045. The plan includes a rule that all new passenger vehicle sales in California will be zero-emission or long-range hybrid by 2035.
While buildings and transportation account for most of New York’s GHG emissions, waste comes in third, accounting for 5% of the Big Apple’s total GHG emissions. In general, Americans waste a lot. The average American produces 2 kg of waste daily, up to 809 kg annually.
The good news for businesses is that sustainable waste strategies create ten times more jobs than sending waste to landfills or burning it. Today New York City is only recycling 17% of its waste and composting 1.4%. Food waste has been a particularly stubborn problem for the city. Despite government-backed food waste challenges and bills curbing restaurant waste, the city continues to struggle as advocates call for more robust, reliable, and accessible composting.
Companies are developing technologies to combat this food waste problem. One startup created a process to grind up old food and use digestive enzymes to turn it into fertilizer within three hours. Other companies are working to stop the problem at their source with Zero Waste Manufacturing. This strategy centers on reducing and reusing materials throughout the supply chain to achieve optimal levels of consumption.
In Frankfurt, Germany, industrial, commercial, and residential buildings contribute substantially to GHG emissions.
Increasing efficiency can play a major role in reducing these emissions. Smart city initiatives are one-way cities like Frankfurt increase their efficiency and improve their quality of life. Smart City Frankfurt worked with businesses, scientists, and citizens to identify 12 priorities that needed attention. They included intelligent traffic control, which reduces emissions from idling, smart heating for houses, which reduces unnecessary energy use, and improved environmental and health data.
Not only do these initiatives help cities reduce emissions, but they also hold opportunities for new businesses to jump in and help develop new technologies. As global temperatures rise, cities will find themselves with new problems to manage, and demand for smart solutions will grow.
The health of our planet is the foundation of a hopeful future, but so is the well-being of all people. In fact, the two are inextricably linked. While climate change poses a threat to everyone, communities of color and those with less economic advantage are likely to experience the worst of it. Tom’s of Maine recognizes the junction between diversity and equity, and climate change—and they’re actively working to do something about it.
On top of an internal Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) program, Tom’s of Maine has ongoing philanthropic initiatives. Their corporate giving program, Giving for Goodness, donates 10% of annual profits to fund climate change, health and well-being, and disaster relief organizations. Their Get Into Nature initiative was created to help young people from underrepresented communities access the outdoors. And according to the 2022 Goodness Report, 80% of the program’s funding this year went to BIPOC-led organizations. Learning, growing, and bettering ourselves through DEI work and giving back is a way we can make a difference today and every day.
BERLIN — European Union governments and lawmakers reached a deal Sunday on key elements of the 27-nation bloc’s green deal, reforming the EU’s trading system for greenhouse gas emissions and creating a new hardship fund for those hardest-hit by measures to curb climate change.
The two sides agreed to push European industries and energy companies to cut their emissions by speeding up the phase-out of free pollution vouchers. Doing so makes each ton of carbon dioxide that’s released into the atmosphere more expensive for polluters.
The EU’s executive Commission said the measure would require European industries to reduce their emissions by 62% by 2030 from 2005 levels, compared to a target of 43% under the previous rules.
To ensure a level playing field, the EU will also introduce a tax on foreign companies that want to import products which don’t meet climate-protection standards European companies have to comply with. The so-called Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism was agreed to last week.
Governments and the European Parliament also agreed to extend the bloc’s emissions trading system to cover road transport and the heating of buildings from 2027. This is likely to raise the price of gasoline, natural gas and other fossil fuels for consumers, providing an incentive to switch to cleaner alternatives.
The deal includes an emergency clause allowing the introduction to be postponed by a year if energy costs are particularly high.
Against the backdrop of the current energy crisis that has stoked inflation in Europe and beyond, negotiators agreed to also create a social climate fund that will help vulnerable households and small businesses cope with higher costs for fuel arising from the new measures.
The fund comprising tens of billions of euros will be phased in from 2026 and filled with proceeds from the auction of emissions vouchers.
“We can now safely say that the EU has delivered on its promises with ambitious legislation and this puts us at the forefront of fighting climate change globally,” said Czech Environment Minister Marian Jurecka, whose country holds the EU’s rotating presidency.
The provisional agreement needs to be formally adopted by the EU Parliament and governments. It is part of the bloc’s broader ‘ Fit for 55 ’ package intended to help the EU cut its emissions by 55% by 2030 from 1990 levels and achieve “net zero” by mid-century.
Separately Sunday, countries that are part of the North Seas Energy Cooperation were expected to sign an agreement with Britain on working together to expand the construction of offshore wind power and electricity interconnectors. The deal also envisages cooperation on the production of hydrogen with renewable energy.
The United Kingdom, which left the North Seas Energy Cooperation agreement when it quit the EU in 2020, already has the biggest installed capacity for offshore wind power in Europe. With further expansion planned, Britain could become a major exporter of wind power to continental Europe in future.
The UN biodiversity conference, COP15, is due to wrap up on 19 December. This weekend, we are looking at some of the ways that humanity is reliant on biodiversity for a healthy and thriving global ecosystem.
When a species goes extinct, it takes with it all of the physical, chemical, biological, and behavioural attributes that have been selected for that species, after having been tested and re-tested in countless evolutionary experiments over many thousands, and perhaps millions, of years of evolution.
These include designs for heating, cooling, and ventilation; for being able to move most effectively and efficiently through water or air; for producing and storing energy; for making the strongest, lightest, most biodegradable and recyclable materials; and for many, many other functions essential for life.
Nature’s value is not limited to human applications, but the loss of nature and biodiversity represents major losses to human potential as well.
Here are some examples of the ways that nature has inspired engineering solutions.
UNDP
Way of the dragonfly
Inspired by the energy efficiency of dragonfly wings, particularly at low wind speeds, Professor Akira Obata, formerly from Japan’s Nippon Bunri University, designed corrugated blades for micro-wind turbines that turn and generate electricity, at wind speeds as low as 3 kph.
Most wind turbines perform poorly when speeds are less than 10 kph; some will not turn at all. By lowering the minimum wind speed requirements, these micro-wind turbines can harness wind energy in easily accessible locations like rooftops and balconies, and not need expensive towers to capture the higher speed winds found at higher elevations.
By studying and understanding the aerodynamics of dragonfly flight, Obata was able to make inexpensive, lightweight, stable, and efficient micro-wind turbines that can be used in off-grid locations in developing countries.
What is blacker than black?
Some butterflies, birds, and spiders have evolved super black coloration achieved by a variety of complex light-trapping mechanisms that could lead to new energy-efficient designs for solar collection.
The micro and nano-structures of surfaces strongly determine their light absorptive or reflective properties. Understanding not only the composition of the pigments involved but also the fine-structure and the physics of these surfaces, may be useful in designing more energy efficient systems for heating and cooling buildings, and more productive solar energy collectors.
‘Fog basking’
Two species of beetles actively harvest water from fog with a sequence of behaviours called ‘fog basking’. Late at night, in advance of the fog that rolls in nightly in the coastal sections of the Namib desert, the beetles emerge from the sand and climb up the dunes to place themselves in the fog’s path.
Tilting their bodies forward while facing the fog, they harvest moisture on their backs, which are made of hardened forewings called elytra that cover and protect their hind wings, used for flying.
The small water droplets in the fog collect there, coalesce to form larger droplets, which, by the force of gravity, run down the smooth hydrophobic (i.e. water-repelling) surfaces to the beetles’ mouths.
Given WHO estimates that half the world’s population will be living in water-stressed environments by 2025, the specific chemistry and structure of hydrophobic surfaces found in Namib beetles has generated enormous scientific interest for their potential human applications.
Birds and fossil fuels
Gliding and soaring birds are masters of aerodynamic efficiency and their wing-tip feather design inspired engineers to add small up-turned ‘winglets’ that reduce drag caused by vortices at the tips of aircraft wings.
By copying this wing-tip design, commercial airlines have saved 10 billion gallons of fuel, reducing their CO2 emissions by 105 million tonnes per annum.
To sequester this amount of carbon, one would need to plant about 16 million hectares of trees, each year – an area larger than the territory of Norway or Japan.
Extinction is not a foregone conclusion
The wastefulness of extinction is perhaps best highlighted by the near-extinction of the humpback whale.
Over-hunting almost wiped out these gigantic creatures, among the largest to ever have lived on the planet, and the humpback population crashed to just 5,000 in 1966.
Conservation organizations and scientists prompted a huge public and political outcry and humpback whales bounced back to an estimated 80,000 today. The humpback, uniquely, has bumpy ‘tubercles’ on the front of its flippers that enable these giants to manoeuvre with extraordinary agility.
The tubercles give the whales a hydrodynamic advantage – they minimize drag, enhance their ability to stay in motion and, critical when attacking prey, allow them to turn at sharper angles. Among other applications these have inspired engineers to make some of the most efficient industrial fan blades and wind power generators. If the humpbacks had gone extinct, we might have never been able to avail ourselves of the tubercle design.
The extraordinary organisms featured above, along with the sustainable engineering designs they have inspired, present a compelling case for why we must preserve biodiversity.
The organisms that create the support systems make all life on Earth, including human life, possible: millions of species are at risk, but losing even a single species can have enormous negative consequences for humanity.
